The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 4 eBook

(216) The piece was entitled “The Trip to Calais;”
in which the author having ridiculed, under the name
of Kitty Crocodile, the eccentric Duchess of Kingston
she offered him a sum of money to strike out the part.
A correspondence took place between the parties,
which ended in the Duchess making an application to
Lord Hertford, at that time Lord Chamberlain, who
interdicted the performance. Foote, however,
brought it out, with some alterations, in the following
year, under the title of “The Capuchin."-E.

Letter 93 To The Countess Of Ailesbury.
>From t’other side of the water, August 17, 1775.(217) (page 138)

Interpreting your ladyship’s orders in the most
personal sense, as respecting the dangers of the sea,
I -write the instant I am landed. I did not,
in truth, set out till yesterday morning at eight
o’clock; but finding the roads, horses, postilions,
tides, winds, moons, and Captain Fectors in the pleasantest
humour in the world, I embarked almost as soon as
I arrived at Dover, and reached Calais before the
sun was awake;-and here I am for the sixth time in
my life, with only the trifling distance of seven-and-thirty
years between my first voyage and the present.
Well! I can only say in excuse, that I am got
into the land of Struldburgs, where one is never too
old to be young, and where la b`equille du p`ere Barnabas
blossoms like Aaron’s rod, or the Glastonbury
thorn. Now, to be sure, I shall be a little
mortified, if your ladyship wanted a letter of news,
and did not at all trouble your head about my navigation.
However, you will not tell one so; and therefore
I will persist in believing that this good news will
be received with transport at Park-place, and that
the bells of Henley will be set a ringing. The
rest of my adventures, must be deferred till they
have happened, which is not always the case of travels.
I send you no Compliments from Paris, because I have
not got thither, nor delivered the bundle which Mr.
Conway sent me. I did, as Your ladyship commanded;
buy three pretty little medallions in frames of filigraine,
for our dear old friend. They will not ruin
you, having cost not a guinea and a half; but it was
all I could find that was genteel and portable; and
as she does not measure by guineas, but attentions,
she will be as much pleased as if you had sent her
a dozen acres of Park-place. As they are in
bas-relief, too, they are feelable, and that is a
material circumstance to her. I wish the Diomede
had even so much as a pair of Nankin!

Adieu, toute la ch`ere famille! I think of October
with much satisfaction; it will double the pleasure
of my return.

(217) Mr. Walpole reached Paris on the 19th of August
and left it on the 19th of October.-E.

Letter 94 To The Countess Of Ailesbury.
Paris, August 20, 1775. (page 139)